Mick Hamer

Mick Hamer has been a freelance journalist for more than 35 years, mostly writing for news-stand magazines and contributing to Fleet Street papers. For most of this time he was New Scientist’s transport consultant. In 2001 he was short-listed in the Syngenta science writing awards. In 2018 his latest book, A Most Deliberate Swindle, was named popular transport book of the year.

Transport has been the focus of much of his journalism. He covered major public inquiries into the King’s Cross Fire, the Clapham rail crash and the Zeebrugge ferry disaster for several national media organisations.

A Most Deliberate Swindle is a major piece of investigative journalism. For the first time, Mick reveals a massive swindle that not only relieved Edwardian investors in the London Electrobus Company of their nest eggs but still pollutes the air we breathe. It was published by RedDoor Publishing in September 2017 and has been widely praised. There are a number of extracts from published reviews on the books website: http://mostdeliberateswindle.com/. In May 2018 the Railway and Canal Historical Society gave A Most Deliberate Swindle its award for popular transport book of the year.

Dog-eared copies of Mick's previous book Wheels within Wheels: A Study of the Road Lobby, which was published by Routledge and Kegan Paul, can still be found online and in second-hand bookshops. He is the author of an earlier book for children called Transport, which was published by Franklin Watts in 1982.

He has also contributed chapters to several other books. They include Living in the Future, edited by Isaac Asimov and published by New English Library in 1985, and Wild France, edited by Douglas Botting and published by Interlink Books in 2000.

Before carving out a career in journalism Mick worked for Friends of the Earth. In 1977 he became the first director of Transport 2000. He later worked on transport research at University College, London. A number of reports written by Mick date from these years.

Mick lives in Brighton and has another life moonlighting as a jazz pianist, playing gigs along the south coast and in London. He was the department store piano player in the 1988 film Stormy Monday, which explains the film listing on Amazon.